Dr. Miglena Grigorova I remember getting up in the middle of class and erasing the the blackboard because I thought it’s too busy and it was I was being distracted by other things and of course I was punished and I had to go see the principal or times when I would just get up and go look through the window out the window because I heard somebody you know playing outside and it was more interesting to me than listening to the teacher, and I was born in the 60’s so yeah it was very difficult because it was about discipline it wasn’t about what was wrong with you it was about you’re not disciplined and to be non discipline in a communist Bulgaria was the worst thing that can happen to you and also to your parents because they were being judged based on that.

So of course children like me grew up with the sense of guilt of always doing things the wrong way and not knowing how to do them right because you weren’t told how to change you were just told that you have to change. You were told not to talk in class not to move in class not to come to stop fidgeting and I didn’t know how to do that. In any high school it was impossible for me to just sit through a class I would always have to do something with my hands and of course people the teachers didn’t like me for that but also playing with my classmates was difficult and with my friends with my cousins. I couldn’t wait for my turn I would stop in the middle of the game because I wasn’t winning. When things were broken or missing it wasn’t always my fault so my mom my my relatives my family would blame me for everything that was happening and of course I was always the black sheep in the family for everything so that was very difficult.

and then the teachers would say oh she’s brilliant but she’s just not so not disciplined at all so we don’t know what to do with her and then when I came to Canada and I started realizing that this is a disorder that I could do something for it and then of course I went to psychology and and I became clinical psychologist and I now work with patients this way and the first thing that I addressed with the parents is the behavioural help children can get because we don’t want them growing up with the sense of guilt of not knowing how to do the thing right or things right and and being told that you know they’re not good enough or that you know they they just have to be like everybody else when they’re not.